The actual practice of loving kindness:

 

In the formal practice of loving kindness, we begin as we would with any of our mindfulness practice: we settle the mind and ground ourselves in our own experience and body sensations. We connect with our breath and bring awareness to any wholesome or positive emotions which are already present.

We begin with developing loving kindness towards ourselves and allow our hearts to open with tenderness. For many people this can be the most difficult stage - they may accept the notion of kindness to others, but struggle with the idea of extending this to themselves due to problems of low self-esteem, attitudes of not-deserving or self-sacrificing.

In the mindfulness tradition, “charity has to begin at home” and we will be limited in our capacity to develop qualities of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity if we fail to develop these qualities for ourselves. If we maintain the separation between ourselves and others, applying different rules to each, then we are still practicing discrimination and unkindness.

It can sometimes help if we begin by bringing to mind someone who has loved and cherished us in our lives, simply for who we are – unconditionally! This may be someone who is still around in our lives, or someone who is no longer with us. We may have only experienced this for a moment in our lives; perhaps this has even been from an animal. If no-one comes to mind, then perhaps, we can imagine what it would feel like to be loved in this way, perhaps by an imaginary figure or a Higher Being.

In any case, we try to foster the feelings of what it is like to feel loved in this way - to receive the warm embrace of loving kindness from another. And then, we let go of the source of this loving regard and see if we can generate those feelings for ourselves.

It may help to use our imagination and to picture our self as a young child standing in front of us (perhaps five or six years of age), if that allows the feelings of loving kindness to flow more easily. And we wish ourselves well, using traditional phases if that helps, or phases of our own:

May I be well.

May I be happy.

May I be free from suffering.

We repeat the phrases silently to ourselves, really meaning it. Perhaps we can say our name to ourselves, allowing our tone of voice to be gentle and kindly.

We are not trying to force anything or to squeeze out any particular feeling from our hearts. If things feel dry or distant, that is fine. That is our experience. We can allow whatever is there just to be there as it is. In time, we may find that our experience changes and deepens.

After a period of focusing loving kindness towards ourselves, we gradually let go of the image of ourselves and bring to mind someone in our lives whom we love dearly, silently saying their name. And we direct our feelings of loving kindness to that person, holding them in our warm embrace. If it helps, we can imagine them also as a young child and we can wish them well:

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be free from suffering.

Maybe we know that our loved one is suffering or has suffered and that they cannot be free from their suffering just through our wishing it. The point here is to cultivate our intention of well-wishing –we may not be able to stop the suffering and pain, but we hold our loved one within the embrace of our loving kindness allowing any sensations of warmth and connection to build up within our hearts.

Gradually, we can let go of our loved one and broaden the circle of our awareness to include all of those with whom we share our day to day lives: our family, our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends, our pets. We can imagine them appearing in front of us, one by one, and silently saying their names. Among them, there will be those we do not feel close to, those whom we do not like or approve of, and those we do not know. There may be some among them whom we find difficult. But loving kindness does not need to be restricted to liking or closeness or approving. We can recognize that they are fellow human beings and we can still wish them well. If they are well, then perhaps they will be less problematic for us. We can wish them all well, opening our hearts to them, feeling the warm embrace of loving kindness reaching out to each of them.

May they be well.

May they be happy.

May they be free from suffering.

And we can continue to expand our loving kindness, in ever widening circles, to include all those with whom we share our world. We can expand out in geographical circles or we can simply allow areas of the world to appear to us. We can bring to mind those people who have been involved in growing and preparing our food, making our clothes and other products which we use; people from across the globe whose lives are in so many ways connected to our own, even though we have never met. We may wish to bring to mind areas of the world where there is conflict or suffering. We can include animals, plant life, the environment, the earth itself, and all life everywhere! And we can wish them well:

May they all be well.

May they all be happy.

May they all be free from suffering.

Again, we may be sorely aware of the suffering and know that it is not within our capacity to bring it to healing. However, the point here is to work on our intention and our well wishing, and we can feel confident that this in itself will have a positive effect, even just for our own state of mind. We are training the mind and the heart not to turn away, to feel connected and intimately involved, as best we can.

We bring this practice to a close by letting go of all objects of our loving kindness and coming back to ourselves - “the one who has loved us all of our lives, and who knows us by heart”, as Derek Walcott says in the poem, “Love After Love”. We can sit for a while and bask in the energy of loving kindness that we have generated.